The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal ... - IndianCoins.org

176 S. W. GROSE.Many attempts have been made to explain thevarious letters and abbreviated names which appearupon so many of the coins of the Sicilian and SouthItalian towns. The most cautious and conservativeview is that they stand for the names of magistrates.Others, more bold, contend that we have to do withthe abbreviated signatures of artists, who sign sometimesas proud witnesses of conscious artistic merit,sometimes as responsible mint officials. This theoryis based on the certain fact that artists' signaturesdo occur, notably at Syracuse. In some cases thesesignatures are in microscopically small letters ;onother coins only the first two or three letters of thename are given, the letters then being of larger size,as large, in fact, as those of the ethnic. The artistKimon will sometimes sign in full in small letters andadd a large initial K elsewhere on the same coin. Themain facts concerning signatures at Syracuse are toowell known to need even brief mention here. Freshground was broken by Mr. E,. S. Poole in his article" "Athenian Coin Engravers in Italy (Num. Chron.,1883, pp. 269 seqq.).He maintained that placed inan inconspicuous position on some early coins ofThurium and Terina was an artist's signature. Othershave identified this ^ with the artist who signs PYon later Thurian coins, and so rendered the furtherto the known artist 0PYFIAAOZ not hard tosteptake (P. Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, p. 121 ;Eegling, Terina, Winckelmannsprogramm, 1906, p. 44).This isthought to have worked at Thurium andTerina between c. 430-420 B.C. (Evans, Num. Chron.,1912, p. 38).A little later an artist who signs Pappears at Terina (ibid., p. 38). Here we may note